Biting the Bullet
by MockingbirdSoul
Summary: In which a training exercise brings a whole other meaning to fighting dirty. Bakugou/Uraraka


Disclaimer: I do not own _My Hero Academia_ the manga, the anime, or any other related works under the series' name.  
Pairing: Bakugou x Uraraka  
Genres: Action, Humor.  
Rating: M for strong coarse language (you know who) and some suggestive themes.

Here is my humble attempt at a Bakugou POV. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 _Biting the Bullet_

* * *

The pavement is cracked and uneven beneath his hands as Katsuki struggles to get to his feet. Thin streams of saliva, tinged with red, dribble from his mouth when he coughs, staining the ground beneath him. At the same time, smoke arises from his palms, the chemicals secreting from his skin sure to leave their own hand-shaped scars on the asphalt.

A string of curses dangles off the edge of his mouth, a part of him that is working desperately to retrieve the air that had been knocked out of him not ten seconds ago. Katsuki lifts a shaky, gauntlet-less arm to wipe at his dripping chin before issuing the most vicious look he can muster at the girl before him.

Uraraka is also hunched over and panting for breath, but unlike him, is still on her feet. From one arm hangs the busted gauntlet he had carelessly casted aside after deeming it inoperable – not expecting her to re-purpose it as a goddamn _bludgeon_ to his face – while the other clutches the side of her hero suit singed from his dire efforts to keep her at bay.

From his hazy periphery, he spots Earphone Girl stumbling towards the finish line to secure their win. His own moron of a partner is down for the count, an even bigger drooling mess amidst the rubble after frying what little brains he had to offer before.

Katsuki staggers to his feet, hissing at the throbbing under his skull. With troubled focus, his vision zeroes in on the remaining seconds ticking away on the holographic timer above the victory gate.

Two minutes.

He snarls, expletives spilling incoherently from his mouth. Two against one has never been daunting odds to him, but he didn't anticipate _this_. If the setup was different – if it was _anyone_ else standing in his way – he would force his way through to the finish line.

Katsuki slides his gaze away from the numbers counting down at the gate to the round-faced obstruction in his path. His ruined gauntlet slips from her grasp, and clatters unceremoniously unto the ground while mimes his previous actions by swiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

Then, her brown eyes are suddenly at level with his, alight with a determined gleam that reminds him that Uraraka Ochako is _not_ anyone else. How this isn't the first time Katsuki has had to be on complete guard against her and her quirk that could launch him into orbit. And neither is it the first time she's thrown caution to the fucking wind in another self-sacrificing scheme.

He distantly recalls how her voice, normally so upbeat and annoyingly saccharine, had echoed across Ground Gamma as she shouted at her teammate to make a break for it, and how unexpectedly familiar it sounded.

How she had stood her ground against him, with no intention of running herself.

Their smoking surroundings tell a tale of his explosions being put to the task of keeping her the hell away, while she had made use of the debris and other offhand weapons – a barrage of steel pipes at one point – to hold him off until her partner reached the gate and won it for them.

Two _fucking_ minutes is all she's left him with.

"No hard feelings, Bakugou," she breathes as she steadies her defensive position. "But I gotta take care of you real quick."

Under different circumstances, he might have sneered. Instead, he does a quick scan of the area and, to his relief, finds nothing in the wreckage she can potentially weaponize. Her headfirst posture confirms his guess that she's planning to charge, but the unsteady rise and fall of her tiny frame belies the bold front she puts up.

She's got an empty hand _and_ she's slowing down.

Katsuki lowers his own stance and throws his arms back, fury settling into deep focus. His hands are seared and aching, lungs burning from the fumes curling around them, but his muscles tense like tightly wound coils ready to snap loose.

Two minutes left to get past her.

Two minutes left to win.

No room to fuck up.

He taunts back in a solemn undertone, "Then come here and take care of me."

Their reactions are instantaneous. No sooner than when she breaks into a sprint towards him does Katsuki chain explosions to propel him forward. He sees her press the pads of her fingers together before springing into a massive, zero-gravity leap. When she's close enough, she shoots out an arm to seize his shoulder, nearly finding her purchase until Katsuki releases another vertical blast aimed at the ground.

He concedes that she's upped her speed since they last fought, but the lack of restrictive boundaries in their new arena lends itself to his greater mobility. Katsuki jets out of her reach in an arc overhead, twisting around the moment her back is in sight. He barely catches the way her expression morphs into one of wide-eyed panic before he aims a Stun Grenade at her point-blank.

Before the burst of brightness can fully engulf her, his memory briefly flickers to the Sports Festival of their first year. Recollections of her relentless charges for him, of her soot-stained skin and of the light from his explosions glinting in those huge brown eyes of hers all flash before his mind.

Fear is something Katsuki knows best through others, by making them feel it – even when he doesn't try to. He recalls the crowds of pro heroes jeering at him because they had feared him _for_ her – feared that he was being too rough with her, that he was bullying her, that he was going to Break the Cutie.

But no matter how many times he had seen that same fear spark across her face during that match, it hadn't kept her down. In a fight where they were both after victory, it wasn't going to keep either of them down. And right now, they still want the same thing. Katsuki just wants it more.

"No hard feelings," he echoes lowly, pivoting around just before the smoke can dissipate, and blasts off toward the victory gate.

* * *

One minute, thirty seconds.

 _Almost there..._

Pain shoots down his arms with every propulsion, but Katsuki stubbornly braces himself against it as he flies onward. Using max firepower is a crapshoot. There's still a good chunk of distance between him and the gate, and he doesn't want to burn out midway. If he keeps his momentum steady, he can make it. He _will_ make it.

One minute, twenty-two seconds.

Up ahead, he sees Earphone Girl finally collapse onto the asphalt. From the way she'd taken a direct blow from his teammate's indiscriminate shock, Katsuki hadn't expected her to make it as far as she did. If not for Uraraka's decision to stay behind and fend him off, she wouldn't have made it _anywhere_. That much is obvious, but Katsuki still finds himself vaguely annoyed when he zips past her. Annoyed that she can't go on, and that her partner's efforts will have gone to waste.

One minute, fourteen seconds.

 _Deku,_ he thinks on the fly, jaw clenching on reflex as he remembers their end of term exam against All Might. _That damned nerd...he would've kept going._

And before he can really weigh the reality of it, he thinks,

 _Uraraka would've kept going._

Not a second after that unbidden thought passes does Katsuki become aware of the large shadow looming overhead. Swearing for the umpteenth time, he jerks his head around to find out just what the hell it is _now_ and—

His blood runs cold.

"Motherfu—!"

For hardly the first time today, Katsuki's reflexes save him from the newest obstacle thrown his way – what he identifies as one of the torn-up rails of the bridge Earphone Girl had collapsed way back at the halfway point of the race. In a frenzy, he kicks back just in time to avoid being crushed when it drops from the sky and pierces the asphalt like metal jaws sinking into prey. Clouds of dust and debris gust forth from the impact, sending him flying even farther away from the gate.

Fifty-eight seconds.

 _"Damn it!"_ Bracing himself against the pain, Katsuki throws his arms back, ready to discharge blasts to keep him from plummeting to the ground.

But just as gravity starts to usher his painful descent onto the concrete, _its_ worst enemy springs forward to target him herself.

 _"You're mine!"_

He angles his head back at the shrill echo of her voice, eyes widening at the blurred flashes of pink, black, and brown homing in on him as he falls closer and closer to her awaiting clutches. Shit. _Shit_.

Fifty-two seconds.

Putting it simply, Katsuki panics. It's the exact moment when she enters grabbing range that his brain jumps fucking ship, all knowledge of Physics, their quirks, and other stuff urgently relevant to the situation getting dragged under with it. Instinct takes the wheel and emphasizes only one thing for him: Uraraka is coming for him, and Katsuki needs to _haul ass._

Once more, their reactions are instantaneous.

And their timing could not be any worse.

What happens next is too jarring for even Katsuki to keep up with. The only thing he registers in the seconds after their quirks simultaneously activate is a blistering velocity, as if the speed of his most powerful Howitzer has been amped up to eleven. He also manages to take note of Uraraka clinging to him like her life depends on it. Which, in the context of the two of them shredding through the air at breakneck speed, _it really fucking does_. With the cancellation of their combined weight and the shift in trajectory from their collision, they're set to torpedo through the nearest factory building unless one of them does something.

They must be thinking the same thing, because no sooner than when Katsuki frantically blasts a gaping entry way through the first floor does he hear Uraraka shriek, _"Release!"_

Gravity exacts its painful vengeance against them both. And it clearly has a sick sense of humor, seeing as it adds a whole other layer of Not Cool onto their freak landing.

Amidst the wreckage of rubble and clouds of powdery building dust, Katsuki does not account for anything remotely _soft_ to accompany the absolute crapfest of a fall he just took. In spite of the way it was spinning, his mind supplies him with the sensation of another chest heaving beneath his own, of puffs of warm air coasting past his neck. It is only when he strenuously lifts his body that he confirms the soft, curvy thing panting underneath him to be Uraraka. The arms that had seemed dedicated to crushing the life out of him not too long ago have fallen limply at her sides. His own arms are bracketing either side of her head while one of his knees is wedged between her thighs.

But this is all background info to Katsuki, whose groggy attention is fixed – _immovably –_ on her face. Her eyes are squeezed shut, lips parted for some really deep, really needy-sounding breaths. Whether it's to combat the pain from their fall or the nausea that comes from overusing her quirk, Katsuki doesn't have a clue or even a fuck to give, especially since the issue strikes him as being _low_ on his list of priorities right now.

...Except it's really distracting. Not to mention it makes him even more aware of his own labored breathing, and of just how little distance there is between them. Which matters for some reason he can't seem to grasp at the moment. From beneath the smatterings of dust coating her cheeks, he can make out an even brighter shade of pink coloring them. His brow furrows, head tilts – shit, he didn't think they could _get_ any pinker.

Something flickers in his periphery, and Katsuki (finally) drags his eyes away from the girl beneath him to the wall he had obliterated. Through its crumbling frame, he discerns a nearby structure with a set of numbers blinking away in the air above it.

Thirty-three seconds.

Oh. Right. That thing he wants to get to – _the gate_ , he recalls in a sudden flash. It's somehow way closer than before. He rifles through his (still spinning) head for an explanation, and surmises that the factory site they crashed into must be on the outermost ridge of Ground Gamma...or something...

His vision goes hazy, and for a moment he thinks he might pass out until it clears again.

Twenty-nine seconds.

Crap. What is he _doing?_ Victory is slipping away. He needs to get off his ass. He needs to get off _her_.

He has no chance to determine which of those thoughts is more responsible for reviving his resolve, because the instant Katsuki makes to bolt for the gate, he hits the floor again with a pained cry. The first thought that pops into his head when Uraraka pins him to the ground with an arm twisted behind his back is _no_ thought, because fuck, fuck, motherfucking **_fuck,_** he is _not_ in the mood for this bullshit.

Twenty-six seconds.

 _"Uraraka..."_ Katsuki intones so darkly that he nearly frightens himself. "Get the hell off so I can _pound_ you!"

"I'm not lettin' you get away...!" she grits out, brown eyes now wide-open and searing with resolve. Then, she shouts over at the hole he blasted through the building, _"Kyouka, go!"_

Twenty-one seconds.

With an enraged yell, Katsuki summons every ounce of strength he has left to throw her off his back. She narrowly dodges the weak blast he swings back at her and wastes no time tackling him to the floor again.

What ensues is an ill-timed wrestling match that consists of him trying to get the upper hand, and her stealing it out from quiteliterally _under_ him each time. A voice in the back of his head screams that he's only wasting time and energy, and he promptly tells it to go fuck itself. The girl just shot them through a stone-ass fucking building, and she _still_ wouldn't stay down. No way in hell is he letting her get the better of him.

In the midst of all this, curious things like the fact that Earphone Girl is somehow miraculously back on her feet, or that neither of them is bothering to use their quirks do not cross his mind. The hands he has spent this whole damn exercise trying to keep _off_ him are now pulling harshly at his hair and clawing at his face. She could float him into the fucking sun at any minute, but neither of them seem to acknowledge it. Hell, _his_ hands are no less blind and grabby in their attempts to get her to back off, but there isn't even a tendril of smoke wisping out from them. For whatever reason, he refrains from blasting her face off, even though he's definitely working up enough nitro-sweat to do so.

Which brings Katsuki to the reality that he's actually struggling against puny little Uraraka in this quirkless rough-and-tumble, but he attributes that ego-shattering fact to just how exhausted he is.

Right. Exhaustion. That's it. That's _precisely_ why she's tossing him around so easily. He's just tired. That's all.

It's got nothing to do with how soft she feels or how nice she still smells under the soot and perspiration, nothing to do with how she presses herself down on him to keep him in place. Nothing to do with the breathless sounds she makes when he bucks his body underneath hers and flips them over so that he's the one on top. Though, he only manages to keep her pinned like that for a grand record of four seconds until she shoves him off and repeats the cycle.

But again, it's because he's _really freaking tired._ There's absolutely no other reason why he keeps letting her get him off – of _her_. No other reason he isn't putting up much of a fight...if any at all.

No, that would be wrong...way wrong.

Eventually, the last shred of reason left in him – which sounds irritatingly like Deku – reins his priorities back into place. Katsuki twists his head around at the gaping hole in the wall, searching hurriedly for numbers.

Seven seconds.

 _"Fuck…!"_ he rasps as he slams her onto her back and makes one last mad dash for the gate.

Then her hands grab him again. So do her legs.

And so does her mouth.

Of all the hell she has given him today, Katsuki can easily claim the feeling of her teeth sinking into his neck as the most fucked up part of it. Fucked up because right when it happens, everything _shuts down_.

His muscles fail him. His mind reels. The startled, strangled gasp that tears from his throat somehow coveys something other than pain when she brings his body crashing down onto hers again.

From under him, he feels her buck her body _hard_ and then he's underneath her again. The ground is hard, and bits of rubble are digging into his spine, but the weight pressing down on every inch of his front is hot and smothering. Everything erupts in a blinding flash, and Katsuki is nothing but a bundle of sensation. Of arms crushing him, of legs tangled with his, of a warm, wet pressure clamped over the vein thrumming wildly under his skin. Then, there's pressure _everywhere,_ on his neck, his chest, his abdomen, and there, there, right _there_ —

Off in the distance, a siren wails.

The tight clenching tears away from his neck, and he gasps. His eyes snap open, wide and unseeing, but his ears catch every cadence of the next announcement as it carries through the air.

 _"Team Jirou and Uraraka wins!"_

* * *

He should be angry. He has every goddamn right to be _livid_ right now – with the loss, with her, with himself.

...but his mind is blank.

Once the last echoes of the announcement disperse from the air, the only sounds Katsuki hears are that of a dull thudding and of air rushing in and out of his lungs. Coherent thoughts are scattered beyond his reach. The only thing his mind registers is _heat, heat, heat_.

With each intake of breath, the stars clear out of his vision and sensation seeps back into his limbs. He realizes the compression he feels is coming from being trapped between the ground and something else – something that shifts almost undetectably above him.

Almost.

His eyes dart up to find Uraraka staring down at him, and Katsuki sees red. For the briefest moment – even though it's pointless now that the race is over – the sight of her sparks a furious impulse to surge off the ground and pick up where they left off, any penalty issued by their teachers be damned.

And no sooner than when that flame is torched inside of him does it flicker out when her breath hits his lips.

Katsuki recoils from the foreign sensation, as if it had burned him. He glances up and immediately goes rigid at how...close she is. Too close. Enough to still feel the warm air from her lips fanning against his. It's one thing to hear and see how out of breath she is, but he can somehow _feel_ the motions of it through the cradle of her hips draped over his.

Whatever traces of hostility are left on his face slowly disappear as he realizes that they are sharing much more than just breathing space.

Propped slightly off the ground on his elbows, Katsuki becomes uncomfortably aware of the amount of Uraraka that is invading his personal space. She looks worse for wear, hair and face flecked with dust, a noticeably large tear in her hero suit at the shoulder. One of her hands is splayed under his throat, thumb and forefinger dipping into the grooves of his collarbone, while the other hovers before her open mouth.

The look in her eyes – those _huge_ brown eyes – is completely different than from before, as if she has just woken up from a dream.

"I..." she tries to say, but the words are lost in the inches between them.

The hand at his throat curls ever so slightly. Normally, he would take that as threat, but the alarm bells in his head are muffled by that weird thudding from before. It grows louder as he notices things like the specks of dust caught in her lashes, or the ring of charred material surrounding the missing patch of fabric at her shoulder. It isn't a tear like he initially thought, but the handiwork of his explosions. Dark smudges of soot pronounce the delicate line of her collarbone and the subtle swell of what he recognizes as her chest.

At which point, his brain – _the little shit –_ returns with the unhelpful reminder that the soft, curvy thing sitting on top of him is a girl. Her hand shifts again against his throat, and through the plush pads of her fingers, Katsuki recognizes the thundering of his own heartbeat.

"I-I'm so sorry! I—"

Now both hands are waving frantically in front of her as she babbles apologies that Katsuki can barely understand. Not only because she's stumbling over her words, but also because the movement of her lips keeps drawing his attention to a glint of white beyond them. He dimly deduces that those are her teeth. The ones that had just been on his neck.

Her teeth. On his neck.

Realization hits him harder than a Detroit Smash.

"—was _so_ uncalled for. I just – just...Bakugou...?"

Upon hearing his name, Katsuki snaps out of his reverie and drags his gaze back up to Uraraka's now concerned one. Something other than chemicals stirs under his palms as he takes in the distressed knit of her brows and the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. Her flustered, tousled appearance somehow only aggregates the image of her just rolling out of bed instead of fighting tooth and nail to wrest victory from his hands. It's almost enough to make him draw another blank.

Almost.

"Bakugou? Is something wrong?" she asks, alarmed by his silence. "Did you hit your head?" She reaches out and skims fingertips along his brow, their touch featherlight, but enough to set him off. She shifts as if to finally extricate herself from him. "Can you stand—?"

Her question is interrupted when Katsuki shoots his arms out and drags her back down onto him. The startled sound she squeaks out is drowned out by an even sharper gasp when his teeth close in on her exposed shoulder. She squirms in his grasp, but one of his arms snakes itself around her waist, crushing her against him while the other tangles gloved fingers in her hair. Acrid tastes of soot, smoke and sweat all hit his tongue, but underneath it all is something he can only name as _her_ , and it only stokes the flames of whatever wildfire of feeling has suddenly engulfed him.

Belated anger, he decides. No, _more_ than that. Red-hot, inimical, all-consuming **_rage_** is what compels Katsuki to tighten his hold and sink his teeth deeper into her. _She_ started this, and _this_ is nothing but payback. He bites down with a mantra of _payback, payback, payback_ in his head that falls in tune with the vein fluttering feverishly beneath his tongue – warm and pulsing and fucking infuriating. This whole thing is fucked up and a total pain, but that's the _point_. He isn't enjoying this any more than she is – which is obviously _not at all_.

The hands pawing haplessly at his shoulders are trying to push him away, and are not pulling him closer. The shallow panting at his ear is _not_ stroking anything other than his petty vindictive side. The feel of her chest mashed against his and the weird flowery fragrance rolling off her skin are _not_ pleasant, and only make him angrier. He feels nothing _but_ anger and disgust and frustration, and every other negative feeling out there, because to feel anything else right now would be—

She gasps and arches into him.

— _so wrong_.

Ripping his mouth away, Katsuki shoves Uraraka off of him, ignoring her startled yelp as he shoots up off the ground and finally onto his feet. The abrupt rise disorients him a little, but he catches himself before he can double over. He steadies himself and brings a trembling hand up to his forehead, dragging fingers through his hair and dusty air through his lungs.

His heart is pounding painfully hard and there's a distinct lack of bloodflow above his waist. Everything aches like a fucking _bitch..._

And yet, despite the combined protest of his muscles and joints, he still pivots just enough to look back at where he had just been.

Uraraka is sprawled out on her side from the way he had thrown her off, but has her head angled back to gawk at him, eyes still wide and breathing still shallow. She's clutching her bare shoulder, her hand blocking any evidence of what he'd just done. She looks exposed, but he doesn't avert his eyes, grappling for some form of defiance to offset how internally shaken he is. The voice in his head is screeching WHAT THE _**FUCK**_ WAS _THAT,_ but Katsuki just scowls – grimaces, probably – and breaks the silence with the first thing he can think of.

"You owe me a new gauntlet..." he mutters bitterly, hating the way his voice catches in his throat. He can still taste her on his tongue and teeth, and talking only makes it worse. Growling in agitation, he swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

At that, the look of wide-eyed astonishment on her face slowly shifts into one of confusion, doubt, and something else he can't put a name to. She opens her mouth as if to respond, but abruptly closes it again, face flushing even redder as she rises to her feet.

For all that, he can't find a glimmer of fear in her eyes...but something simmers beneath her lashes that makes him swallow thickly. An embarrassing heat tweaks at his abdomen, and spreads to the rest of him. Katsuki tears his gaze away, unwilling to think that he may be looking at her the same way.

Like they both still want the same thing.

"You guys!"

They both jump, startled out of the awkward silence they were just in. Their attention darts to the hole in the wall, landing at the exact moment Kaminari, fully-functioning and non-drooly, comes running through its frame, Sero and Kirishima in tow. All three appear visibly relieved at the sight of them, but Kirishima still bounds over to them with concern all over his expression.

"That crash was insane! The building cameras blacked out the moment you guys hit, and it freaked us out," he recounts. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"We found 'em!" Sero calls out over his shoulder, presumably to the rest of their class.

Suddenly, Uraraka lets out a mortified sound. Katsuki flicks his eyes to hers, and finds her holding both hands at her shoulder, desperate either to cover up how much skin she's showing or—

Katsuki feels a cold dread wash over him.

Before he can make a break for it, he feels a hand clap his shoulder. He snaps his head over to find it attached to Kaminari.

"Dude, thank god you're okay. Man, I can't _believe_ I was out for—" He pauses abruptly, golden eyes widening as they zero in on Katsuki's neck. "Wait, is that a—?"

The words are struck dead on his tongue when he glances back up at Katsuki, whose expression is finally conveying the effect he wants – _murderous_.

In seconds, Kaminari is blown up back to stupid, falling limp and drooly into Sero's arms. Katsuki stalks out the hole and out of Ground Gamma, storming past Four Eyes and Deku and what may as well be the whole damn Hero Department of UA – all while clutching his sore neck. He thinks he hears one of the girls ask Uraraka about hers, but Katsuki doesn't stick around to hear her answer. He makes a beeline for the locker rooms, not caring whether his teacher will chew him out for it. He needs a cold ice pack.

...and an even colder shower.

* * *

A/N: RIP Kacchan and Kaminari.

So, that happened. This is _super_ experimental, so let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading!


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